Chicken Mushroom and ndried soy pastry... thing.

I don't know. Chinese dishes have lots of ingredient and no way to make a nice name of it. I also made a side of bak choi, because us Chinese don't believe in just one dish with rice. :)

Right, the chicken-mushroom thing...

First thing first: soak the dried mushroom and the bean burd skin after half an hour to an hour before cooking. I just left mine soaking for about 2 house. Dad would've probably threw a fit if he saw that.

When the mushroom and bean curd skin are ready (the ends of the skin won't be nice and soft. Let it go.), marinate the chinese pieces. Might've worked better with chicken nibbles but meh, it's not too bad. I had about 300g of chinese pieces, and used a table spoon of sesame oil (coz they are the best), 2 table spoon of soy sauce, and a table spoon of oyster sauce. The secret to good Chinese cooking is the marinate and the sauce, but we don't usually tell others that. And now you know.

Next: add about two cloves of garlic (thinly sliced) and heat about a table spoon of oil in a non-stick pan. They're so much healthier and less hassely to clean. Now, once the oil heats up, add the garlic. Let the garlic fry for a minute or so to get the flavour out in the oil. Then you add the chicken, along with the sauce. Fry it for a while then add the mushroom and pastry. Add about 1/4 cup of water, cover, and let it simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. You might want to add another table spoon of oyster sauce and maybe 2 tablespoon of soy sauce before you cover and simmer.

Now, the fun part. Dissolve about a heaped teaspoon of cornflour in some water, and pour it over the chicken et al to thicken the sauce. Cook for a little while uncovered and there you have it. :)

I'm SO glad the soy pastry thing turns out nice... it's one of my favourite things. :)

The "Good Night's Sleep" smoothie

I was going to blog about my bread making but since that didn't turn up well, I'm going to blog about my smoothie mix instead.

After a friend sent me a list of food that'd help me sleep better (forgot the link, sorry), I come up with this smoothie, which taste fantastic and I think is helping me sleep...

Ingredient
1 banana, roughly chopped
600ml milk (or about two mug's worth)
1 teaspoon of honey
a pinch of cinnamon, if you like cinnamon like I do. :)

To make smoothie
Use hand held mixer to mix them. What do you expect? :)

Apparently bananas have melatonin in them, which is what I've been taking in US to help me sleep (it's a prescription drug here in NZ. Grr). Milk being good for sleep is well known. And honey not only supposed to help you sleep better, I heard it's supposed to help with the liver too. Somewhere on the web will be an article about it. :)

Bacon and Mushroom Baked Rice

Ah.. baked rice. It's a Hong Kong cafe thing mainly. I was going to make carbonara and then I realise I don't have cream. So, what I did was making baked rice instead.

Pretty simple really: cook rice as per usual. We haven't got the rice cooker an adapter yet so I had to cook it in a pot the "old fashion" way. While the rice is being cooked, make the mushroom sauce. (recipe below)

Now the rice was done, add bacon. Pete and I get the bacon pieces because it's cheaper and "pre-chopped". We don't really eat whole rasher of bacon that often anyway. So add that on top, and put it in the oven at 180C.

Meanwhile, grate your cheese, enough to cover the dish, and make some bread crumbs. It's my trick really: just run a fork in the flesh part of the top of the loaf of bread. We use Vogel which means it's got yummy linseeds and soy goodness too. :) Just make it a wee bit more special.

Now: the rice and bacon should be warmed (it should only take about 10 minutes to grate those cheese and make those breadcrumbs. You do not need that much cheese!), put the mushroom sauce on, covered with cheese, and sprinkle the breadcrumbs. Back in the oven (still 180C) for about 25-30 minutes, basically until the cheese is slightly toasted on top.

I think I made a bit too much, so leftovers for tomorrow lunch I think. A mate's wedding tomorrow (on a Friday... a Lenten Friday too! Heh.) so I think that should be handy for us just because we head off. :)

Mushroom Sauce
It's basically a white sauce with mushroom in it. If you use pre-package stuff you probably want to heat it up with the mushroom in it. If you are making it from scratch, here's how (from the all-mighty Edmund's Cookbook :))

1. melt 50g butter in a pan
2. add your mushroom. I added about 1.5 cups of chopped mushroom. Depends how "mushroomy" you like it I guess.
3. Once the mushroom is softened and you can smell the gorgeous mushroom aroma, add 3 tablespoon of plain flour. Stir.
4. By now you should have a gluey mess. Heat it until it's a big foamy and bubbly. Then gradually add 1 cup of milk. The trick is to add a little, stir the heck out of that thing, and then add a little again.
5. Add salt, pepper, parsley, and whatever else that may take your fancy. :)
   

Chinese satay mushroom

So I've some left over Japanese curry from a few days ago (seriously: the third time you reheat that Japanese curry is the best, when the potato just about to melt... yum!), but not enough for the two of us. So, quick stock take of the fridge, I bought some Phoenix Tail mushrooms, cheese, and some lettuce so I thought mushroom salad sounded nice...

So, exhibit A: meet the lettuce. Pete confirmed that YES being a bit red around the edge is normal. I didn't really believe him but what the heck. Not like we had anything else. Lettuce were cut (and after last time when I used half a lettuce and realised that boys don't like salad... I only used about a third of what's shown) We have our salad... Yay!

Now, the mushrooms. I just bought these simply because they look yummy, and the fact that I vaguely remember mum stir fried it before and I liked it. So, cut them up in strips, and stir frying we went. I cut the stem part out but at the end decided they can join in the fun too. I cooked about half of that box. Added about a teaspoon of Chinese satay paste (literally "sand tea sauce" in Chinese, but I can say for a fact that it tasted nothing like sand), and one and a half teaspoon of soy sauce. Mixed them up til they're all nicely coated, and off to the frying pan they go. At the end I didn't put it in the salad because I've decided that would be insane (it's too salty and "Chinesey" to be in a salad) so I put them in a separate plate, and we can add however much we want.

The results:

Tada! (my curry not shown in picture. :) Don't worry we had more rice than that for dinner). The mushroom proved to be a success and I might even add meat and tofu tot he stir fry next time I do it. I've also decided that the secret to Chinese cooking is all to do with adding the right sauce. Man I love that Chinese satay paste though. They do make everything taste good. As a bonus tips, Chinese satay paste can be made as a wonderful dip for steamboat with soy sauce. Depending of how much of that slightly spicy taste you like just adjust the soy sauce to satay paste ratio. I was bought up by a father who refuse to use recipes so I wouldn't know what a "right" ratio is. Usually I put a heaped teaspoon of the paste and mix enough soy sauce in it to make it into something I can called liquid. :)

Finally: Putting my blog is good use

Some of you might realise that I don't update this blog too often. It's either because I got less busy or the fact that I don't really have time to be funny once I moved into this new place with Pete (lots of little things to be done). But fear not, for I thought of a good use for this site.

From now on this blog will be used to blog my cooking adventures. Neither Pete and I were really into cooking before, and now that we're thrown in the deep water, we just have to learn.

Well, *I* just have to learn.

So there you go. :) And now, I have to cook dinner....

Caption Competition!

Not that all that many people read this blog, but here, caption this:


No photoshop needed for this. Ah, I love it when the city council reserver planner have a sense of humour. :)

And this ends my very short and lazy blog update. :)

People who just won't take a hint...

I was spoilt by Trillian, never having to deal with random people pestering me on ICQ. That ends when I'm travelling and started using Meebo. Seriously, great service, but they really should add some sort of way to stop random people messaging like Trillian has. I never realise how many random messages one would get.

Most of the time if I ignore them that'd be the end of story. But then you get one of two that just keep messaging and messaging. Some even wants to meet up. And I was thinking, you ask a complete stranger to meet up because of their ICQ info? Just how much more desperate can you get?

I had a particularly disturbing case today. Seriously a few times I just handle people like that by saying I'm not interested or and I'm engaged. This one actually asked me to prove it. Hint: if a girl said she's involved with someone, asking her to prove it won't make her change her mind even if she was lying to start with, it just makes you more of a jerk.

The guy also had a classy opening line "wanna meet? i like asian girls". How some people decided that it's a great way to woo girls with intelligent words such as those I have no idea. Some people really need a life outside of internet.

It took a while for Petey to remind me that Meebo has indeed added the block user function a while ago. I almost feel sorry for that other guy though. He really doesn't have a clue.

Call me an elitist (and in a way I guess I am), but I just not at all interested in conversation with random stranger online who can't even sustain a proper semi-intelligent conversation. Granted I've been known to go to the other extreme (I have a thing for over-achievers), but I thought it's kind of reasonable to assume that girls in general don't get turned on by idiot-speak?

Great, now I'm a feminist, a racist, as well as an elitist who despise idiots online. Ah well, I guess that's nothing new.

My new celebrity crush

I probably should clarify one thing about my celebrity crushes: they're an obsession. I think even since I was 14 there's always been ONE celebrity whose photos occupied the space inside my locker door. Until I don't have a locker anymore and I just search for their wallpaper. Right now, seeing I'm a bit more mature (not to mention being engaged and all), I've toned it down a little.

Until now.

Honestly: Ekin Cheung lasted til I was about 16, then it's Koichi Doumoto, only to give way to Leonardo deCaprio, which was replaced by Hisashi from Glay. That lasted for about 4 years until I thought I found the perfect being called Orlando Bloom. (Seriously, you KNOW who Orlando is right?)

Now you might notice that all of the above are somewhat...what's the word...girly. And YES I do recall that and yes a lot of people do question my sexuality becasue of that.

Until now.

Honestly, my new celebrity crush is the single proof that I've grown up. Not only is my new official celebrity crush not girly, he has greying hair (which is surprisingly sexy), a fantastic sense of humour, and most of all he's so witty that he has a whole show because of his wit.

Ladies and Gentlmen: my new celebrity crush, Mr Jon Stewart.

Yes I know. Not exactly my usual type. I'd been following The Daily Show on YouTube back home in NZ. It's not until I'm in US and get to watch it every night (Mon - Thur) that I truely start to love him.

He's a lot cuter when you see him in his show, really.

But honestly, I surprised myself too. I thought when it comes to celebrity I have the taste of a 15 year old girl. Apparently, I have indeed grown up. Not to mention that this time I go for a guy probably more because he's incredibly witty and funny, not just because he's absolutely delicious in a suit. Or in a sweater.

There you go. It's now official: I'm not shallow and I don't only like girly looking boys.

Somewhat inappropraite entry for today, seeing it's 32 months today since Pete and I are going out (and we still celebrate our lunaversaries...) So Petey: Happy 32 months :D And I think you're A LOT hotter than Jon Stewart. But don't tell Jon that. :)